NBA Rescinds Orlando Game 3 Win Due To Confetti

At least, imo, that’s what should happen. With .05 seconds left in the game, LAL was scrambling for threes, the score being 106-102 Orl ahead. At that point, some overeager Orlando stadium employee decided to pour confetti from the ceiling, inspite of the fact that Bryant managed to score off an offensive rebound and foul Rashard Lewis on the ensuing inbounds play, leaving .02 seconds off the clock. Granted, that isn’t much, but it still does not mean the game is over.

As a result they actually ‘froze’ their own player on the freethrow line, introducing unnecessary jitters as they took a while cleaning the court of confetti and other debris as Lewis prepared to take his shots. Thankfully they went in, making this rant moot, but valid regardless.

I’m sorry though, but I can’t really concentrate on what happened due to the fact that while the game was going on I was trying to find out how the Anti Con-Ass rally at Makati. As a result, I even have only one screenshot of the game here:

and not even a good one at that, of Kobe getting cleanly blocked by Dwight Howard and still getting a call. The crowd of course reacted strongly to that, but I remember feeling not strongly enough. It was such a blatantly wrong and bad call that it just made me sick to the stomach, really.

At any rate, LAL is still ahead 2-1 in their Finals series against ORL. For the most part I enjoyed the fact that Orlando stuck to their strengths and entrusted the game to old hands Lee and Alston, the latter incidentally one of the game’s highest scorers at 20. I’ve started to understand Coach Van Gundy’s rotation much more now, resting his players at reasonable stretches, except for Turkoglu who seemed to have played all of the 2nd half, making his 18 pt., 7 ass. 42 minute performance even more impressive.

Phil Jackson on the other hand seemed to have rested Kobe far too long in the 4th quarter. Kobe per se made several un-Kobe like errors down the stretch starting with a missed freethrow that could’ve chopped Orl’s lead to 2 with .59 seconds left in the game, followed by a TO with .28 seconds left when Pietrus managed to poke the ball away from his dribble as he was trying to manage a Gasol pick.

Big errors they were, but mere in – the – game errors still, which for the most part you just brush off quickly and move onwards from. Kobe is a champion at this and he’ll be ready next game for sure. The last thing they want is to play against growing – in – confidence Orlando team, and the only way to keep that from happening is to beat them, and keep beating them.

Ok that’s enough basketball for today, watch out for the Finals of the Nike Summer League tomorrow which I shall be covering live at the Ynares stadium. Now to more important stuff, and see how that rally at Makati is doing. I hope to join the next one if I can.